


A Visit to Jedi Purgatory

by Cosmopaws



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Afterlife, Force Ghost Qui-Gon Jinn, Force Ghost(s), Gen, Jedi, Purgatory, Star Wars References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 23:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18839419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmopaws/pseuds/Cosmopaws
Summary: Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn endures the pain of his mistakes within Jedi purgatory where he witnesses the horrors of a heightened reality.





	A Visit to Jedi Purgatory

It was dark. The first thing he felt was a cold wisp of air cut across his cheek. His sense of feeling, however, was like an empty shell of what he remembered feeling to be. Like it was a memory of what “cold” was in his corporeal body. Qui Gon’s eyes did not open, it was as though they were never closed but a barren wasteland flickered into focus as though his mind still was capable of the function of “seeing.” A wicked wind whistled and he felt as though he inhabited a body again. His arms pushed his figure up from the ground and he glanced around his environment in an almost life-like manner. Almost.

This desert was unlike any place he had ever seen and his lifeless soul absorbed the dull beiges and lavenders of the dust and occasional rocks scattered around him. He was filled with a longing for warmth and a hunger to finish the mission he started in his mortal life when he adopted the boy, Anakin, as his young padawan.  
The wind manipulated granular particles to form ghoulish shapes, little more than a pair of empty eyes and agape mouth wavered past Qui Gon’s vision. Qui Gon explored his shifty environment, portals of light dashed past him. As he focused on them, he noticed that they were not simply ejecting light into the landscape but were more like windows. He witnessed Anakin training alongside Obi Wan, his mentor. He felt proud. He saw Anakin grow strong but lanky in adulthood, quickly surpassing his master in height. Qui Gon felt the simulation of warm blood flowing through his veins.

The desert began beaming with light and the bitter frost melted away. The wisps of ghosts brightened revealing flecks of spring greens and autumn blues in the skies. But just as the environment cleared like mud being shifted downstream, the vibrant transformation halted. One eerie window revealed a dark center where Qui Gon could barely make out the scene it unveiled. He reached out with an incorporeal hand and wiped the shadow only to find it spread like oil in water. He sprung backwards as the portal pulsated repugnantly. It imploded and fizzled and scattered ash everywhere. The springtime that visited for only moments resumed the gloomy mood within a fraction of a moment.

The light portals vanished, replaced instead with the charcoal characters from before. The only sounds Qui Gon could make out were his own choppy breathing and cackles from the menacing ghouls. They were small but many and they swarmed in a swirl around him, blurring his vision. He lost his balance from the motion created by the incessant winding and fell to his knees. He glanced through squinted eyes to avoid the sting of sand-like granules. His pupils relaxed slightly and his hand sprung in front of him instinctively. There was a “whoosh” and he felt something colder than the night pull itself into his weathered hands. He felt the familiar ridges until his index finger activated a switch. He sprung up on his toes and slashed at the mist of demons. Laughter turned to screams as the monsters retreated.   
He turned around steadily to scan the wavering dunes for devils. It was too quiet and that victory was too easy. He was drawn to search over the peak of one of the dunes. He crept carefully but to his surprise, saw nothing. Suddenly, a shiver overtook his spine and he spun about to face the perpetrator. A large silhouette gnashed uneven teeth in his direction as it lurched forward threateningly. Qui Gon swung his light blade at the phantom but nothing happened. He noticed his weapon had softened in his fingers into flakes of sand. He was defenseless. The Hell Ghost shrieked shrilly as it sped towards and then through Qui Gon.

An illusion. 

Of course, he thought to himself.

The force of the phantom charging through Qui Gon threw him backwards into a vortex created by thousands of united shady figures. All feeling of his mind existing within a body evaporated like the last drops from a canteen in the Tattoine desert as he descended into endless darkness.

Where?

He had fallen for so long that his heart beat slowed. It felt like he was floating or perhaps had been frozen midair. There was no distinguishable atmosphere in this place to be spoken of. It would feel peaceful if Qui Gon were not holding on in anticipation of what might be shown next.  
He felt his feet again. They registered some type of solid ground beneath. It felt firm but there was no texture, as vague as the environment in the last world. The only sight he could make out was faint light. He wondered if he was stuck in a tunnel. He moved his consciousness forward towards…was it an entryway or a porthole? As he approached, it took on an elongated shape and the color seemed a cool white. No, it was blue. The ground under his heels changed to the recognizable shifting of sand, soft, even, reflecting the bitter temperature and, as the light drew closer, he could pick out granules of light reflecting in the grains.

He stumbled.

There was an indescribable object that had caught his foot. It was solid but soft. In the dark, he couldn’t register what the form was until now, pushing himself up from the ground, he sat facing the source of the light. His eyes glimpsed the powerful boot and followed the form upwards to a face completely contorted in rage.  
Hatred.

“Anakin!” He shouted with all the power of the Jedi who had gone before him, “No!”

He felt his voice rise up out of his soul and into the darkness and out of the void, bolstered not by hatred but of love for this boy, his padawan. He felt the hapless weight of failure. The figure of Anakin flashed his sword around as he searched for intruders or enemies. The countless of lumps of death fallen around them told the two knights that all was finished here. 

The bodies of Tusken Raiders riddled Anakin’s mind with moral questions; questions that Qui Gon could not possibly know the answers to. Qui Gon could sense his padawan’s confusion, fear, anguish. It felt like ice in the channels of his mind. He wished desperately to melt the pain away, to change the course of this history. Qui Gon no longer had a mortal voice. He looked again into the boy’s agony-stricken eyes in the scarce lighting. Anakin let out the most heart-clenching shout before he released his laser sword, once again plunging Qui Gon into the shadows.

All he could hear was breathing but even that ceased once he remembered that he was merely a soul and the function was only made to give this purgatory more realism.

Silence.

Only darkness. He tried to pull it in over himself like a blanket to gain some type of comfort. He felt nothing.  
Had it been hours? Days? Time means nothing in this place of non-existence. He yearned for home. He desired the things he so sorely took for granted. He missed his own voice and the feeling of sound trickling through his ears. He missed the buzzing of light entering his eyes. He longed for the pump of his heart. For shooting pain. He missed the avalanche of oxygen flooding his lungs. He missed the colors of the skies and the rush of hyperdrive forcing him through space. He missed savageness of hunger tearing through his stomach and the tenderness of satisfying it. He missed belongingness. He missed existence.

It had been too long.

As suddenly as he had plummeted into darkness, his eyes were embraced by a second glowing object which appeared at a distance. It pulled itself towards Qui Gon at a high velocity. As it neared him, it revealed the again barren wasteland surrounding him. Qui Gon found himself standing before the shadow beast, lightsaber clutched in hand. Now, combat had lost its appeal. Qui Gon let the light-sword tumble to the ground. He fell to his knees with his hands stretch out, by his sides, his fingers angled at the ground, his chin angled inwards, eyes tightly closed in a desperate attempt at surrender.  
“Whatever you have to show me, so be it.” 

Qui Gon Jinn opened his eyes.

The smoky ghoul grinned wide. Qui Gon glanced around in horror. Scenes of Anakin with Padme, rolling down hills, protecting her, deliberately breaking Jedi Code to be with her…falling in love with her. It somehow reminded Qui Gon of the way he used to be in his youth. He recalled developing a fondness for someone but he could not recall the danger he sensed with this love. This was an adoration held together by jealousy and possessiveness, fragile feelings that could be lethal when shattered.

They were too close.

The wasteland felt claustrophobically small. The demons were closing in, pressing their cloak-like forms around Qui Gon until he could not breathe, were he able to. A small whisper is detected in his ear. The words are so soft that he cannot make the message out. He watches on silently as the two form a secret wedding engagement. “Feel don’t think” echoes several small voices. Padme reveals her pregnancy to Anakin. The voices layer on top of each other until they crescendo. Anakin tosses and turns in bed, wakes up in a cold sweat, mutters about his paranoia, his fear that his wife might die during childbirth. The demons wrap their lengthy tails around Qui Gon’s hands, restraining him. He attempts to turn his head away at the next scene but he is prevented. Padme is shown in agony as she delivers twins but loses her will to live.

She dies.

Qui Gon grimaces at the heartache these stories tell. He can hardly take it. The great smog-like cur snaps its evil jowls shut and stampedes once again towards Qui Gon who helplessly falls through the darkness once again.  
Just as aimlessly as before.

Qui Gon sits erect in a seat with his arms and legs tied down. Fear immediately grips his heart like a hand forcing the muscle to beat at a rapid pace. The blood pulses in the vein on his forehead which appears about ready to burst. His eyes dart about wildly, paranoid of the next traumatic scene.  
A holographic screen lights up before him. Anakin’s face is barely visible under his hooded garb. He is walking through the Jedi temple and the air already tastes sour. A small child approaches Anakin asking for advice but Anakin’s face covered in the manipulation and lies Palpatine has fed him. Qui Gon’s own face feels like it is crawling with icy spiders. Anakin detracts his lightsaber and leaps at the young padawans, easily overtaking all of them. Qui Gon cries out helplessly.

Why?

But before he can wonder about anything, dozens of corpses rain down from the darkness above, pelting Qui Gon to the ground, still unable to release himself from the chair’s grip.

He opens his eyes to find himself in a fetal position in a graveyard surrounded by a fine mist. The environment again is vague but the names on the tombstones are crystal clear. Names of Qui Gon’s friends, people he worked with, masters, fellow knights…and padawans.

Lightning.

Clouds accumulate and it rains blood. It stains his robes and clumps in his hair. He sobs in disgust and attempts to turn and run away. As he prepares to escape, his eyes widen at the appearance of a familiar face. A safe face. Someone Qui Gon can trust. But the only words the small, wise, green Jedi Master has to offer are words stinging with criticism.

“Listen to me, you should have. This mess you see, we would not be in.” His face covered in maggots is eaten away to the bone but his voice continues eerily, “Failed everyone, you have.” Bones covered with worms sink into the soggy, blood soaked ground. Qui Gon collapses in a heap, sobbing. The scene fades to black.  
Breathing.

But not Qui Gon’s breathing. Distinct breathing. Heavy breathing. Mechanical breathing. Qui Gon did not dare look up but he heard four surprisingly gentle words.

“There is still hope.”


End file.
